Shen texted me to meet him at the café after school, so I put the jar with the beads in my backpack, keep it close with me all day. I don’t even trust my locker. Every so often, I’m tempted to take it out. To look at it to make sure the beads have actually changed color, that it’s not my own mind failing me.

It’s Friday, but I have to come up with some sort of excuse to go into Chinatown. I message the family group chat that I’ll be picking up some notes from Mrs. Nguyen. Lies upon lies, stacked up on one another, until I feel like I’m getting smothered by them.

The day passes by slowly, minutes trickling by. The exhaustion seeps into my bones, makes me jittery. I put on my headphones in the hallways to block out the sounds of the school. The song that trickles out from my headphones reminds me of the times Tina used to come into my room in the evenings. I would do homework while she read a book beside me.

Don’t you ever get sick of listening to piano music? she would complain, and then put on one of her songs, perform the choreography from her imagination. The way she would pop out a hip or shimmy herself downward, show me a new move, and not care about how she looked. How she would throw herself on the floor, laughing, when she accidentally tripped or slipped. I can’t remember the last time we did that. When she wanted to spend time with me.

I miss her, I realize.

I just want my sister back.

“Ruby!” A hand lands on my shoulder, disrupting my thoughts. I gasp, returning back to the sidewalk in front of the school. Not knowing if it is someone real or something from the shadows. I yank the headphones off my head, the music trailing away.

“I didn’t know how else to get your attention.” Shen has one hand up, like he’s defending himself.

“Sorry,” I murmur, and tap the headphones. “The noise-canceling is really good.” No more whistles. No more whispers. I want to block everything out. All that noise.

“You…uh…you doing okay?” He steps closer and drops his voice, as other Westview students emerge from the gate and stream out onto the sidewalk. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

I shake my head and hold up my wrist for him to see.

“A scratch,” I say. He takes my arm carefully, fingers barely brushing my skin, so that he can see for himself.

“They shouldn’t have been able to do that,” he says, perturbed again. Someone bumps into him on the sidewalk, and he lets go of my arm, as if realizing where he is.

“Can I give you a ride? I have my car today. I just have to stop by the art studio to grab my project,” he explains. “Can’t cart it home safely on the bus. You have everything you need?” I nod.

We wait at the crosswalk and head to the building across the street, the same building as the Middle Years program. He has a key card for a separate entrance, and we head up a narrow stairwell to an open space on the third floor.

I realize this is where the giant windows are that can be seen from the outside, because this space is huge. There are large metal tables set up in one section, upon which there are all sorts of art installations. Pottery, papier-mâché creations, statues made from wire, half-carved sculptures, an intricate model of a house. In one corner there are easels stacked against the wall, some of them standing with partially finished works attached.

“Wow!” I exclaim, not sure where to look. My eyes are drawn up to the open ceiling, a crisscrossing network of ducts, fans spinning lazily overhead. “I didn’t even know this existed.”

“We call it the Loft,” he tells me. “I guess it’s sort of a secret space.” Westview is known for its fine arts program, but I’ve never had affinity for any sort of art, so this has never been on my radar.

One of the students working at the table greets Shen with a wave, giving me a curious look before bending over his project again. Shen leads me to the section with the easels, and stops before one of the art pieces. It’s a painting of a traditional temple, like the ones that I remember seeing on our previous visits to Taiwan. It’s done in the style of what looks like Chinese ink painting, fluid brushstrokes, giving everything a wispy, dreamlike quality.

“You did this?” I ask him in disbelief, and then I remember he probably did those drawings in the sketch pad that he showed me before too.

“Yeah.” A corner of his mouth lifts in amusement, then he shrugs, as if embarrassed, brushing it off. “It’s what I do for fun.”

“It’s amazing.” I can’t help but gawk again. Noticing his delicate and deliberate use of color. Gold lettering on the plaque, red outlines on the roof tiles, a bit of teal on the scales of the dragons and red on the feathers of the phoenix. A large black censer stands in front of the open doorway of the temple, the tips of the incense sticks dotted red, the smoke winding its way up toward the gray-washed sky.

“Don’t be fooled by that humble-artist act!” the boy who’s still working at the table calls out. “It’s how he impresses the girls.”

I can’t help but laugh, even as Shen picks up a paintbrush from an easel and whips it in his direction without hesitation. The boy ducks without missing a beat.

“Ignore him,” Shen tells me. “Mark stuck his finger in wall sockets too many times. His brain occasionally short-circuits on its own.” Mark sticks up two middle fingers in response. Shen then goes to this huge roll of brown paper on the wall and pulls a sheet off.

“Can I help you?” It feels weird to stand there and not do anything.

“Sure, if you want to grab that end.” We spend the next few minutes wrapping the canvas with paper, and then with a layer of bubble wrap, before taping it up with more brown paper. He pulls a few more already-wrapped canvases from a rack, and we head out to the elevator to go down to the parkade.

“Are you also in grade eleven?” I ask while we slide the canvases in the back of his car, upright, and then balanced against each other against the back seat. “I’ve never seen you before we…met each other at the mall.”

“What? Oh. I’m in a self-study program,” he says. “I can take my pick of the prep courses and the Adult Learning classes in the evenings. It means I get more studio time during the day because they can’t give us access to the Loft at night or the weekends. Can’t leave us unsupervised or we might burn down the place.” He flashes a grin to show that he’s kidding.

“Ah, sorry.” He opens the passenger door and reaches down to toss a crumpled paper bag into the back seat. “Wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“This is clean. My mom’s car is a total disaster,” I comment, thinking about the crumbs, shoes, spare clothes, and Denny’s toys strewn everywhere. Baba always says it’s like being inside a kid’s backpack.

“Your parents are okay with you…doing your own thing?” I can’t help but be envious. That would be a dream come true to me. To be trusted enough to have the freedom to make your own schedule. To do what you want. Even though we’re the same age, his life seems so wildly different from mine. He’s working at the bubble tea shop, driving on his own, working on his art when he wants….

There’s a long pause as he pulls into traffic, and for a moment I think he didn’t hear me, but then he says, voice low: “My parents aren’t around anymore. My sister’s my guardian.”

“I…I’m sorry,” I stutter, stunned at this knowledge. I don’t know what to say after that. To lose not only one parent, but both? Did he lose them at the same time? Was it a terrible accident? But all those questions seem intrusive, so I say nothing instead.

“It’s all right.” He clears his throat, then says lightly, “She has high expectations but gives me the space to figure things out. She’s gone sometimes for her…job, so Delia steps in. She’s kinda like a sister to me too.”

That makes sense then, given the closeness that I’ve glimpsed, the easy way they talk with one another. Now I understand that they’re practically family.

“Does Delia also go to Westview?” I ask.

“Nah, she went to King George. She graduated last year,” he says. “Now she’s taking courses at the university.”

We settle into a companionable silence when we drive into Chinatown proper, which is busy as we head into the weekend. Grandmas walk by with their puffy vests, pulling little carts behind them with their groceries. A cluster of old men stands in front of a Chinese medicine store, arguing with each other. A bike zooms by and hops over a curb into our path. Shen weaves expertly around the cyclist, narrowly missing him with the right bumper, even as the man shakes his fist at the car, yelling something we can’t hear through the windows.

They’re all alive, living out their own stories, their personal histories and tragedies. Just like the boy beside me, each of us carrying our own secrets. For some reason, it makes me feel less alone.